An Alberta First Nation is mired in controversy after its chief and council recently awarded themselves bonuses worth nearly $700,000, apparently unbeknownst to the band membership until after the cheques were cut.

The Bigstone Cree Nation band council’s decision to take a payment from a band-owned company it controls points to problems with the band’s governance and could be unlawful, according to Sean Jones, a Vancouver lawyer practising Indigenous law.

“If the band doesn’t have any bylaws that authorize this, there certainly could be a problem here,” he said. “Certainly there’s clearly a risk of conflict of interest.”

The bonus cheques were issued after a plan to nearly double a severance allowance for the First Nation’s elected representatives was abandoned this summer. Chief Gordon Auger had put forward the plan less than a month before he announced his own retirement ahead of the band’s upcoming election, slated for the end of October. After the plan became public, the increase was scrapped — and replaced with bonuses.

Travis Gladue-Beauregard, a band member who opposes the decision, said the issue is part of a larger transparency problem within the First Nation government. “It’s really sad, because we have a lot of members that are living in poverty,” he said.

The Bigstone Cree Nation, which includes the communities of Wabasca, Chipewyan Lake and Calling Lake in northern Alberta, has a population of roughly 8,000 and is governed by a chief and 10 councillors from the three communities. Auger was first elected in 1992 and has been chief, on and off, since then. In July, he announced his intention to retire. “I truly feel that I contributed to building up the nation from practically nothing to where it is now due to the fact of devoting 24/7 of my time as the chief of the nation,” he wrote in a letter.

One month earlier, according to documents obtained by the National Post, Auger had sent a proposal to the council regarding a new “retirement package” for chief and council, referring to their “countless days and hours of family and personal sacrifices.” The plan would have increased the severance for the chief to $150,000 from $80,000 and to $130,000 from $70,000 for councillors.

Coun. Josie Auger wrote a letter opposing the change. “The history of increasing the transitional allowance without a membership meeting and referendum breed irresponsibility and a lack of accountability to membership,” she wrote. The letter was published on the Facebook page of the Bigstone Empowerment Society, a group co-founded by Gladue-Beauregard in 2016 that aims to improve transparency.

Gladue-Beauregard said there was an outcry about the plan when the community learned about it, and the council backed down.

However, July meeting minutes show that even as the chief and council voted to leave the severance allowance alone, they voted to approach Mistassini Aboriginal Contractors Ltd. (MACL), a band-owned company whose board of directors consists entirely of the chief and councillors, “to request the funds for a one-time dividends payment for chief and council as following: $70,000 for chief and $60,000 for council members.”

It’s really sad, because we have a lot of members that are living in poverty

With the existing $80,000 severance payment, the $70,000 bonus would appear to bring Auger’s total compensation to $150,000 as he leaves office.

Gladue-Beauregard said news of the bonuses didn’t leak until the cheques were cut in September. Since then, three councillors have published photos of cheques issued to them that they appear to have rejected. Josie Auger, not one of the three, told the Post in an email that she also refused the money.

“It’s nobody’s business but ours,” said the chief in a brief phone interview Wednesday.

The Post was unable to reach most of the councillors, though two, reached by phone, declined to say whether they’d accepted the money. One councillor, Stella Noskiye, said only that the chief and council are “underpaid.”

Financial records provided to the federal government under the First Nations Financial Transparency Act (FNFTA) show that the chief was paid $90,000 in 2016-17, while each councillor made $82,800.

Mistassini Aboriginal Contractors Ltd. was incorporated in 2015. The entire band council used to sit as its board of directors, though two have since left the board, including Josie Auger. The other, Gloria Anderson, sent a letter to council earlier this year announcing she was resigning from the boards of 27 band-owned businesses she had been sitting on. “I believe that business and politics must be separate,” she wrote. “A review of the current Bigstone Cree Nation business entities corporate structure needs to be conducted.”

In a recent interview with local publication Windspeaker.com, Chief Auger said he had negotiated a “big contract” for MACL to work on a transmission line, and the payout was in recognition of his work. “I said we deserve a goddamn good bonus,” he said.

Under the FNFTA, all First Nations must provide financial statements to the federal government. But the legislation doesn’t require detailed information about band-owned businesses, as that could put them at a competitive disadvantage by forcing them to reveal private business information.

Gladue-Beauregard said band members have little information about revenue from band-owned businesses, and don’t even know how many such businesses exist. MACL isn’t listed as a business entity on the band’s website. He said the First Nation desperately needs money to repair roads and improve housing, and profits from band-owned businesses should be put to better use on behalf of the membership.

However, it’s unclear whether the Bigstone Cree Nation chief and council have done anything unlawful. An RCMP spokesperson confirmed to the Post that the local detachment received a complaint from a community member, but an investigation didn’t lead police to believe “that any type of criminal act has been committed.”

Still, Jones said that having the MACL board of directors be comprised entirely of the chief and council “presents a number of opportunities for conflict of interest.” He pointed to a 2015 court decision that ordered a B.C. First Nation’s band councillors to repay bonuses they had granted themselves without consulting band members. “Generally, good governance would require that there’s kind of a division between the political arm of the First Nation … and the business arm,” he said. And in small communities where overlap between the chief and council and business entities is unavoidable, he said, “there’s a heightened need for there to be transparency and policies to govern conduct.”